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World-renowned jazz club Blue Note opened a new LA location last week — with performances by Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Kenyon Dixon, and more. What to expect this opening season?
LeRoy Downs, host of Just Jazz on KCRW, says Blue Note LA will appeal to a wide audience, including those who don’t frequently listen to jazz.
Charles Lloyd, now 87 years old, is among the last of his era’s great saxophone players. Last year, he released an album called The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow.
“He's a super OG and master of the music, man, and just one of the most humble cats that you want to know and meet. … Charles’ sound … as soon as you play, you know it's him,” Downs says. “And it's almost like it opens up some sort of portal where he can connect with the masters and then disseminate that upon the audience. And we all get a chance to feel not only him, but things that have happened in the past.”
Lloyd previously lived in Big Sur and spent lots of time with trees and water, Downs says, so when you think of him, you often think of nature.
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah , born in New Orleans, led the Xodokan Nation of Maroons. He’s known for playing the trumpet and creating the Adjuah Bow, an instrument based on West African and European traditions.
“With the music that he's playing, it's like, ‘I need to go back and touch upon my roots.’ And he's just visiting history, and everything he does now really is so beautiful, the way he plays and also includes his culture. He wants to teach the world about it, and he does it through his music,” Downs says.
Aja Monet ’s “Castaway” is part of her album When Poems Do What They Do. On the track, she recites a spoken word piece.
“This deliverance with her voice, this haunting piano sound, it always makes you just [exhale]. And then you're able to absorb the words,” Downs says.
He adds, “She is another one that reaches back into history … and touching on ancestors, and thinking about their lives and the things that they went through, and the things they were going through in this modern day and age, and delivering it in such a way that we can all absorb that message. … The music opens you up, and then the words just sink right in.”
Esperanza Spalding, who studied the massage practice called Reiki , wrote songs specifically about parts of the body. On her album 12 Little Spells, the title track is subtitled “Thoracic Spine.” Downs says, “Her tone and the way that she carves her path into your heart is just super incredible.”
Terrace Martin, a graduate of Locke High School in South LA, earned a Grammy nomination for producing Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly. His label is called “The Sounds of Crenshaw.”
“He loves to create music, and he partners with everyone. … He brings the jazz to it. So a lot of things are very groovy, very hip-hop, very soul-oriented. He brings his producing skills, and he brings the jazz into it,” Down says. |
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